Well, in TURNABOUT we see Ellie referring to the phone as “Baby,” so they already have kids in that apartment. But then, Ellie done left the phone home alone, with McFatFat. Well, McFatFat has seemingly shown an ability to get in and out of the house at will. . .

Just how does that fat cat get in and out of a three story apartment?

The world may never know.

But, just find TURNABOUT Kenju, that may show some of the start of the answer for the questions that you ask. Your journey must start with the finger of one click. Then you will know the truths that you seek, for they lie in your head.

And what with the emails that Chris has been getting, they lie in the heads of a bunch of nerds, definitely in their deeps.

Ginger was running over adversaries to getting shopping done. Active adversaries rate a different class of concern from most people than “random person off the street”. So there’s another unknown category from that analogy too.

Now you have me wondering about Cinn trying to taunt a corpse. I’m just hearing her pre-justice questions to Quinn but seeing her at a viewing with varying reactions from the mourners behind her in line.

I’m subscribed to the Rhapsody music streaming service. One thing they are great for: back catalog. For example, they have all the Bill Cosby albums.

I like playing “Chicken Heart” and the other classics for kids too young to have encountered Bill Cosby before. :-)

I listened to a couple of albums I never heard when I was a kid, and I was shocked to hear him telling stories about “Fat Albert” and when he did, he made Fat Albert’s trademark “Hey, hey, HEY!” sound. When I was a kid watching the Fat Albert cartoon, I didn’t realize that the character had roots in Bill Cosby’s stand-up act.

Cinn’s the only one who’d mention it in front of her, and she doesn’t realize it’s a joke, so no joke vibe to get. At that point, Ginger would likely immediately confess to keep Rosemary from exploding, though. Which is why I think Rosemary witnessing it in front of the whole family (from Cinn worrying) would put a kibosh on it for good.

The sisters continue to play off of each other very well and I am in many ways not looking forward to the end of this arc where they will presumably return to being minor supporting characters.

Like I can see having Tarra around all the time and constantly being exposed to over the top insanity could wear a little thin and take away from the overall feel of the comic but for the most part I really want to see more of the girls. I want to see how Anise and her nigh uncontrollable impulse control manage to survive in the world. I want to see how the drama between Ginger and Juniper plays out because the verbal smackdown is a horrible place to leave that thorny topic. I want to see Cinnamon do crazy evil stuff and fail (because my gut says most of her schemes end as well as “hey if you’re dumb enough to loot in front of us, stop” and that the ratanchula success was a fluke.) And I want to see Pumpkin alternate between hanging out with each sister, trying to learn something from each. And to see her dress Ashliii as Launchpad McQuack. Of course I want to see more Tarra insanity, my earlier observation is merely that always seeing Tarra insanity would take some of the fun out of it.

Also as far as comments specific to this comic, I think it’s funny that Ellie has yet another seasonal job to get to. Apparently her schedule has no time for sleep. Pumpkin looks adorable in panel two. And I think this might be the first time we’ve seen Ellie and Cinnamon standing next to each other. The contrast is such that it reminds me of Arnold and Danny Devito in twins. No wonder she turned out evil.

Knew something would happen when Ellie was dragging Quinn by the hand last strip.

And I went to school with twins with one being gay and the other straight. They might not have been Identical but they looked so much alike. I felt it was close enough to f up nature vs nurture arguments.

But Ellie’s got like, three, four inches on her, not to mention the difference in..uh, dimensions. Arent freternal twins at least similar in size and build? I know they arent identical twins, but still I would have thought they would be more similar than that.

I didnt peg any of the sisters as being twins, and if any of them were I would have thought it to be Ellie and Terra were it not for the flashbacks showing Terra as being older.

…huh, thats…thats very surprising actually. I honestly never would have thought Ellie and Cinnamon as being twins. Quite the shocker there man, I am honestly very surprised by this.

Well it is early morning, and I still havent recorved from Daylight Savings Time yet (and wont till we go back to standard time) I just dont recall them being stated as twins. I remember the birthday thing and the card with money thing, I just didnt put two and two together that they were twins.

As for the different builds of the sister, I actually do know a family that has four sons, each with about two or three years between them. They *all* could pass as a clone of their father.

Its kinda creepy, but when they stand in a line, its like watching someone get older or younger depending on how they are standing lol

It’s been mentioned before (on Cinn’s first formal intro, also implicit in the shared birthday party with Ellie getting cash and Cinn’s card being empty).

If I recall correctly, fraternal twins are two separate sperm and two separate eggs, so they should be as similar as any other random pairing of siblings (with the added similarity of same age). I think the height difference is just perspective, as she looks closer in height in the “dirty blonde and the twins” picture in the comic Cinnamon (04 Sept 2013). As to body type, Cinn & Juniper are definitely somewhat less busty than Tarra, Anise, & Ellie. Pumpkin is still too early to tell which way she’ll go, and it hasn’t been obvious/apparent which way Ginger goes, though I’m guessing the Cinn/Juniper body type, partially because Rusche said that her facial features were supposed to be similar to Juniper more than Ellie/Tarra/Pumpkin.

This is Howard Cosell for SportsBEAT. It’s the top of the morning, the scores are tied, both sides have been up to bat, and now here comes the darlingly frigid ice queen, Quinn Nicks.

Buckinham is on the mound, here’s the wind up, the pitch, and Nicks hits the pitch with a line drive to center field. The crowd is going wild. Wait a second. She’s on first and she’s refusing to let GO!

This is one for the rule books, ladies and gentlemen. Oh, wait, pigs are flying. We bring you back to our regularly scheduled mayhem and murder.

Just went back and reread some older pages and found something that is troubling.

Ginger ripped into Juniper for showing ‘favortism’ towards her son who Ginger is raising because she wanted to get him a talking bird.

Yet their mother is buying Percy a Hoverboard…now how is it that the kids grandmother doesnt get any flack for giving Percy a hoverboard, yet Juniper gets her head bitten off for buying her son a talking bird with flapping wings?

Well, check the packaging for age restrictions. Some of those kids aren’t even three, so most toys in existence are ruled out. It wouldn’t surprise me to see an age limit (ie, 12 and up) on the hoverboards, for lawsuit purposes.

Dude, not sure what you mean. 1) Tag is Ginger’s kid, not Juni’s. And 2) somehow I got the impression that Juni wasn’t planning on getting the other boys’ parents, whereas I bet you a fully-functioning hoverboard that Nana-Rosie is getting gifts in roughly the same price range for all the boys, or at least not so disparate that it could be seen as favoritism.

I agree we’ve been over it the past few pages, but I disagree that any consensus was reached over Tag being Juni’s son. She gave him up – now she has no son. Ginger is not raising him for Juni – she adopted him. Tag is Ginger’s son. Juni has no right to treat him like he’s anything more than her nephew, and doing so (just to stifle her guilt) is major disrespect to both Ginger and to what’s best for Tag. While there may have been some disagreement over Ginger being a little too harsh on Juni, as I recall from the last few pages most people still agreed that Ginger was right to tell Juni not to get the parrot. Also that it was sad.

Personally, I have no idea what price bracket a hoverboard is in, and I’m reasonably sure that kids like Percy and Tag don’t either – and that they don’t think that way. If Tag was at all quite a bit put off mate, it’d only be because they got different gifts – kids all across America deal with this problem every year. Whereas if Juni only got Tag a gift, the other boys would be put off because their aunt didn’t get them anything at all. Totally different kind of being put off.

Besides, you don’t know what the boys wanted for Xmas. What if Tag really wanted Walking Dead Legos?

Buying Tag a gift is not Juni improving her life. It’s not the right thing for her to do. Tag is not her son. If she weren’t Ginger’s sister, and tried to re-enter her abandoned son’s life like this after someone else adopted him, she’d be arrested and given a restraining order.

Plus, up to this point, Juniper’s done /nothing/ to indicate she wants to change. She pawned the camera before the shopping started, she was drunk/hung over while shopping with Ginger, belligerent about the fact that she stole someone’s scooter, and spent a good deal of time complaining about how many people they had to shop for.

Then, suddenly, she decides “hey, I realize I haven’t been around for anything, but I’m going to buy the kid I gave up a gift without discussing it with anybody first, even the woman who’s currently raising the child as her own.”

It’s not Ginger telling Juniper she can’t improve herself, it’s that she can’t just jump in like nothing ever happened and expect everything to work out in her favor. If she started doing things to actually clean up her life (go to an AA meeting, stop living in a “ditch,” show up for family events like birthdays), Ginger might be more willing to let her become more involved in the family dynamics than she currently is.

Okay, so, some of the people here think that Juniper was getting the parrot because she only thought that it was cute. But what if Kenji does have a point, that Juniper did hear something about trying to be more responsible.

For a person who had NO idea what to do for anything to be responsible outside of puking in the toilet when indoors it seems, buying something seems to be an okay first step for them. I’ll also suggest that it’s a treacherous path to take, because if they do take the wrong step, hell hath no fury like a mom’s wrath.

Ginger didn’t seem to have the right to throw “You didn’t want him” in her face. But it seems to be in focus with the comic and how that world is running. So, we can make the determination that Juniper and Ginger were both acting human.

Ginger didn’t throw “You didn’t want him” in her face, she said “You said you didn’t want him” and it was in response to Juniper questioning Ginger’s adoption of Tag. It is definitely tragic and heart-wrenching, but not because you should feel bad for Juniper – Juniper was the one who said it! You should be feeling bad for Tag.

I’m amazed how many people are worried about Juniper’s feelings and haven’t seemed to consider Tag in all of this. Dare I say… “Won’t someone think of the children?”

Also I don’t recall anyone saying the reason Juni wanted to get the parrot was because she only thought that it was cute. I don’t even know what you’re talking about there. Obviously Juniper is trying to be “responsible”, I think we can all agree with that. But what she wants to do is actually very irresponsible (as I mentioned, if Tag wasn’t kept in the family, the police would likely be called over her behavior) and so the disagreement is over either 1) whether Ginger should allow her to proceed or stop her, or 2) whether Ginger is just being a big meanie.

That’s what I was trying to say, someone suggested that Juniper overheard Ginger’s conversation about Ellie being gay, showing Quinn how to style her hair short, and she’s got you (Ellie) to be more responsible.

Personally, I think that if Juniper gets the smack down while trying to do something that she feels is a positive step for herself and for Tag, well, no matter how small of a step, or for whatever reasons we attribute to it, it’s a small step in a direction where she’s thinking of someone else besides herself 100%.

But, not knowing what started Juniper down her path to where she is now, we have no way of knowing her exact mental state and such. But as shown in the toy store, she deals with a hell of a lot of emotional baggage and negative self feedback, as well as the negative perceptions of others, as well as the actual negativity at others. And the actual negativity may be used to view the others most of the time when they are being nice and normal.

I’m just trying to suggest that the “You said you didn’t want him” shout cuts much more deeply, but maybe would still be the same if they were just said as if they were talking over a cup of coffee.

The same incident (Tag’s birth) gave Juniper a chance to feel something about another person other than herself, and a chance for people to lay into her with a ton of bricks.

A fight is a two way street, with multiple levels of interpretation. Just ask the guy who asked his girlfriend if she brought the pam spray can. (real life)

I argued quite a lot that Ginger was being too harsh, but I never thought it was inappropriate for her to draw a line, I just thought she should’ve nudged it a bit.

As opposed to unloading both barrels at Juniper on possibly her first instance of giving a damn in years, Ginger should’ve taken a moment to try to redirect it a bit and been supportive if Juniper would and unloaded both barrels and maybe several more if Juniper wouldn’t.

I can certainly accept that Ginger was exhausted and didn’t feel like putting up with Juniper’s crap and will feel bad about not seizing that opportunity, though.

Well it’s probably because Ginger resents Tag for the jaundice and strep and all the trips to the emergency room. The little bastard sure made her life hell it seems – in fact if it were me I’d tell the whole family, Tag gets nothing this year. Payback’s a bitch. No wonder Juni wants to get Tag a gift, since she abandoned him and hasn’t been a part of his life, she has no idea what kind of a little monster he really is.

I really really really hope you are being sarcastic there boog about Tag not getting a gift for ‘causing so much trouble’ getting sick and all.

I’ve helped care for sick cousins, invalid aunts, uncles with alztimers, and comforted a dear family friend in their final moments, even helped give final rights to them.

I’ve helped get family to the hospital, helped take care of family in the hospital, helped take care of them when they get home from the hospital. I’ve been exposed to whooping cough five times, jaundice twice and chicken pox more times than I care to count.

And you know what I got for all that? Nothing, jack squat, not even a thank you. But you know what? I’d do it all again in a heartbeat, because I was raised to always *ALWAYS* do whatever you can for those who are your family. Not once was I asked to do any of these things, and by the same token I’ve had family come give me a lift in the dead of night when I broke down, helped me out of a few….jams i’d rather not get into, and give me anything I needed up to the shirt of their back.

That’s how my family is. We don’t ask for anything from each other, but at the same time we are always there for each other. There have been a few fights, some arguments, but by and large its been very good and there has only been one major falling out I am aware of in the last 20 years.

That’s why Ginger’s actions get under my skin so badly. What she did to Juniper back a few pages, despite taking in Tag and raising him herself, I know for a fact not one member of the five living generations would approve of. Ginger would be lucky to get a single invitation to any family function till an equally public apology was given.

Perhaps my family and upbringing is completely different from your own boog, I can only speak from personal experience, and that experience tells me that my family would have sided with Juniper in this instance.

As far as the story is concerned, the girls are getting the doorbusters or limited quantity items the family wants to give for Christmas. If you really want to split hairs, I eliminated the comics where the girls get a present for the baby. “Don’t touch me there Cookie Monster” or something like that. Which was funny, cause South Park ended up doing something similar, but in the reverse.

These presents aren’t necessarily EVERYTHING being bought for Christmas, but it’s the stress-related, ‘get it now or never have it’ presents. They”re doing this for their mother, to eliminate her stress which in turn becomes Ginger’s.

That’s right, it would become Ginger’s stress, because not only is she the oldest, she’s the one with all the kids. And not just her boys, but all of the girls as well.

I mean, William had the boys all night. Me, I would have hoped that the turkey put them out around 8- 8:30ish. Get things ready for the next day, sit down and watch something neutral on tv. Maybe Fast and Loud on the Discovery Channel, or something like that. Maybe put Airplane II. But Ginger had to stay up all night. Yeah, she’d be cranky. And I did not think of the limited status of the door busters.

Kenju yes, I was being sarcastic – or more accurately I was demonstrating how utterly ridiculous it is to assume that Ginger (or Rosemary, for that matter) is showing favoritism for some of her kids over her other kid, for whom Juniper contributed only genetics and nine months of sobriety (I hope), while also offering a clearly-backhanded parody defense for Juniper’s newfound “responsibility”. How ever did you find me out?

My point is that Ginger isn’t just doing what she can to help, expecting nothing in return here. This is not the same as you taking care of your family members (which is commendable, I should add). Tag is Ginger’s son. She adopted him. He’s hers. He’s always called her mommy, and always depended on her for everything. Not Juniper. Juniper is NOT his mother. She gave birth to him, then she gave him up. I’d wager even Pumpkin or Cinnamon has contributed more to Tag’s development than Juniper. She is NOT mommy. She is just his aunt that never comes to visit. Ginger does not owe Juniper anything – she is taking care of her own son. Juniper buying Tag a gift because she suddenly feels guilty is irresponsible and potentially damaging, and Ginger is 100% in the right to tell her to back off (again, granted, some may consider her methods a bit harsh).

Perhaps our upbringing is different. Or maybe just your current understanding of the comic’s particular situation? Nevertheless, I wouldn’t want to be part of a family who would side with Juniper just so she could feel kind of not so guilty at the expense of her sister and her nephews.

Wow, reading through that again, it almost has a caustic tone. Not completely intended…?

Kenju, normally I like reading your comments, but I couldn’t resist calling you out on the one at the top of this thread. Ginger is being an awesome mom here and a pretty-much-only-average sister (what can I say, sisters fight), and any implication that she is showing favoritism among her own kids (of which Tag is one) is unfounded and pointless. I couldn’t disagree more with your first post. That’s all I’m really trying to say.

Caustic would be a bit much but you have struck some rather deep nerves mate.

Look, perhaps it would help if I gave you an example from my family history to explain things. Remember when I said there has only been one major fight in my family in the last 20 years?

It was something fairly close to this. Only difference was who the verbal beatdown came from and who it was directed it.

I’ve told you before that I come from a large family. One from my generation (of which there are 27) is adopted, but he didnt know, only a small number of us did at the time.

He got into a fight with one of my other cousins, a rather heated argument because he hadnt been invited to the others wedding. The reason for that being the bride wanted a small function and didnt want ‘the horde’ present.

During the course of the argument the one who hadnt been invited told the one who had just gotten married that he was adopted. It was only a few weeks later that the newly wed and his new wife decided to move to the opposite cost. No ones heard from him since.

In the five years since then, I dont think anyone other than the parents and sister have spoken to the one who let out that secret. We live less than five miles from each other and I dont think I’ve seen him but twice since then, neither was by choice.

So you can see, this strikes a nerve with me. I enjoy this comic because it reminds me quite a bit of my family and its rather unique oddness. My ire towards Ginger is simply that of how I would react were I in Ellie or Anase’s place during that argument.

And I appreciate your backstory, although I still don’t see how it informs your position in this discussion, primarily the idea that Ginger is showing favoritism for Percy over Tag, or allowing Rosemary to do so, which is what I have been disagreeing with you about since the start. You keep making Ginger out to be the bad guy – I’m still not even sure what you think she did wrong, aside from being a little harsh on Juniper.

I am not trying to make Ginger out as the bad guy, what I am saying is that her comment crossed over a very specific line, one that at bare minimum warrents an appology.

The backstory I gave was to show how one bad verbal barb can cause damage that cant be reversed. Those two cousins I mentioned, prior to that they were close enough to be brothers, along with myself and one other, the four of us were very close being the only males of our generation.

But because of that one barb, I’ve literally lost all contact with two family members I myself considered brothers. One because they broke off all contact with out entire family, even his parents, the other because I’m still angry even after all this time.

My anger towards Ginger comes from the combination of a failure to appologize, even if only to just keep the peace, and the very real fact that from what I can tell, Ginger really doesnt seem to care if she causes Juniper pain.

Its one thing to say something in a moment of anger, its another to not regret it in the least.

Kenju, as I’ve gradually conceded more and more to the idea of Ginger’s behavior being too harsh (still unwilling to call it “cruel” though), I can agree with most of what you said above. While I feel Ginger’s harshness was primarily due to being defensive, both of Tag and of her own role as a mother which she might have assumed was under attack, I certainly agree and even admitted last week that she clearly isn’t sparing Juniper’s feelings. I understand how your backstory relates to that argument, and I’m not arguing about that.

Again, what I DID originally disagree with was the assumption that Ginger was showing favoritism for her biological son over her adopted son. There’s simply no reason to call her out for showing favoritism, and making accusations like that ARE attacking her as a mother (which is insane because as a mother she’s being awesome – it’s as a sister that she seems to be failing), and therefore add nothing to the discussion other than length.

Kenju: There’s a difference between, “I got two kids one gift of the same type, and the third kid another, because that’s what they all asked for,” and “I got one kid a gift, and the other two nothing, because I only think of the one kid as being mine, even though I gave him up.” I get that you’re empathetic towards Juniper, and I don’t blame you for that. But calling Ginger ‘cruel’ is overstating your case, by a long-shot.

I have to disagree. A Wise man knows when to tame their tongue. A fool just lets loose. I think that’s from scripture, not exactly sure, but if not, then I’ll just say that I’m paraphrasing for the emphasis.

However, I’m not saying that these two are not without blame. It’s just that Ginger went into Momma Bear mode when Juniper was going to approach one of her baby cubs.

On the other hand, Ginger was also laying down the appropriate boundaries that she would expect all of her sisters to follow when it came to her boys. I wouldn’t expect anything less out of any parent or their in-laws. Grandparents have a bit more freedom, but I would expect that they should honor for the most part the parents wishes.

But instead of slapping Juniper in the face, punching her in the gut, she (groan, stupid Quinn/Ellie shippers) tongue lashed Juniper with a venomous barb that struck Juniper to the core almost. I was expecting her to internalize it to a point where she was going to drop off of the face of the earth, uhm, Erf.

It’s a slice of life webcomic filled with satire that took a very serious turn for the dramatic. My High School has mommies in the graduation line every so often now. One of the lower classmen’s (she was a female) younger sister got pregnant when she was a freshman or sophomore. If I remember, she did it with the intent to get pregnant. But, after that, I don’t know.

Maybe it was envy for Juniper’s lassez-faire lifestyle that Ginger shoved in that diatribe.

Mr Blue said it much more eloquently, but I have to disagree with you Freemage. I take nothing away from her point, but Ginger was absolutely cruel – excessively so. I fully get the stress she’s under and the underlying resentment she feels toward her particularly irresponsible sibling, but her barbs could have easily put somebody as emotionally weak as Juniper into a suicidal spiral.

You think Juniper is emotionally weak? Based on…? Because she looks kind of sad?

What’s a non-cruel way of explaining to Juniper that buying only Tag a gift is not okay? Especially when her response is that she doesn’t think her behavior matters, and that she’s his “real mom”, and that Ginger just “watches him”?

I understand your pity for Juniper, but to call Ginger’s behavior cruel or abusive is, as Freemage said, “overstating your case, by a long-shot”. Bringing up all of Juniper’s million other mistakes in life would have been cruel. Saying Juniper was unfit to be a mother would have been cruel. Telling Juniper she didn’t want her coming anywhere near her kids would have been cruel.

All Ginger did was tell her no on the gift and get all defensive about it – you can tell that because the only things she brought up were relevant to the discussion. They were evidence to support her case. I’ve admitted she might have been a little harsh, with a little bit of name-calling and throwing Juniper’s own comments (“I’m his *real mom*”) back in her face, but is that really all it takes to label her “absolutely cruel – excessively so” or “borderline abusive”?

If so, your cruelty-detector appears to be calibrated to extreme sensitivity.

Yes I’ve already conceded that Ginger may have been too harsh. Or, as I described it, defensive. Which is not a good thing to be in an argument. My point was that she didn’t bring up all these things as an act of cruelty – it wasn’t for Juni to have them “shoved in her face” or to make her feel bad about them. They were all relevant to the fight, and for the purpose of defending her position, whether she needed to do so or not.

The comment about Juni’s other mistakes was only an example of something that I would have considered cruel.

Oh, it’s in the correct place. The comments system here is adequate in most respects but it’s really really bad about the way it visually threads replies. A reply doesn’t appear until after all replies to all replies to all replies (et cetera) to all replies to the post the reply in question is a reply to, made before the reply in question. What indicates the post your reply is a reply to is how far to the right it has been indented, and when it’s displaced as far as yours is the only way to really be sure what it’s a reply to is to place your cursor on the left edge of your icon and scroll up without moving the cursor until you find the icon yours is just to the right of.

Most of us regular commenters have learned by now not to bother trying to reply to a post near the root of a thread that already has replied-to replies; if you want the conversation to look sensical, it’s best to just treat it like a forum thread and reply to a replier at or near the end of a branch who is saying something relevant to what you want to say, or find a deeper post by the poster you want to reply to and reply to that one instead of the root one, because otherwise your post gets hopelessly lost and only reeeally hardcore comment readers (like me!) will take the time to figure out what you’re replying to.

Say, I wonder if Jessica might be able to add something like a shade of grey to the responses with even numbers from the left, with odd responses having a clear spot. Like nested backgrounds for the cells in which the response text is presented to the original or root comment.

But for the most part, I’ve been keeping track by using the scrolling wheel on my mouse while keeping the icon on the second row of icons to follow a thread from the root comment on.

As for a reply-tracking-assistance plugin, that’d be fantastic but I can’t see what would actually make sense for someone to develop to make it intuitive. We’re talking it making sense across what’s potentially several pages printed, here. Not to say it’s impossible for someone to come up with something, just that I’d be impressed if it’s something that people generally agree is helpful and not just what one person would prefer.

Some examples that come to mind for me: a parent link next to the reply button, an “in reply to” mouseover of the parent, ability to collapse/expand comments in trees, depth numbers, shading for depth, boxes around comments. I can see different people would like different ideas, and I’ve seen some of those on other comics, so people have bothered to implement some. However, all of them would still be a pain with a comment/reply chain this long and personal preference would have different people preferring different options.

There’s fanfics for fanfic purposes, but I also get something you could deem a fanfic, but written for the purpose of me using it by the reader. Which is fine. Quinn having a crush on Eagan was one, and I used it since it worked well with straining Quinn and Ellie’s relationship at the time.

Then you get something in the middle, where they hope it’s made into a comic regardless of canon. As this one I was submitted several months ago:

“Feel free to claim them as your own.

A headswap could be done between Ellie and Quinn quite hilariously if we involve Tarra. Have it where Tarra and Ellie’s family are descended from Amish. The Amish can all trace their bloodlines back to ancient Isreal. Tarra and Ellie could be from the line of Melchizedek! Tarra could have miraculous powers because her hair has never been cut! Think Samson, and the other old testament prophets. Also it’s believed by some that Jesus never had his hair cut.

Tarra could be attacked by an old enemy. Whip her hair to wrap around that enemy’s neck. The enemy avoid the attack and taunts. The attack strikes Ellie and Quinn, whom Tarra sees crumple as the attack hits them. “Nooo! I’ve killed my sister and her roommate!”, Terra says running to their prone bodies.

But in reality, instead of destroying their spinal cords, Terra’s attack miraculously swapped Quinn and Ellie’s head onto each other’s bodies. you should suddenly have Quinn desiring and disliking the things Ellie likes and Ellie now on Quinn’s body suddenly wanted and hating the stuff that Quinn used to. I’ve always wanted to try to do a story like that, but I can’t define my characters that well.

Also instead of “An Old Enemy” you could have Quinn’s old boyfriend trying to make a drunken booty call on Quinn. Ellie and Quinn fight him. Staying over at there place, Tarra awakens and gets mad at this guy fighting her sister and her friend and she tries to swing her hair around to wrap around his neck. Thus causing the accidental headswap. Let me know if you want more ideas.

Tell me of what you think of that. Throw a brick at my head. I don’t care.”

I’m thinking that Percy got into the gun collection that his Aunt Tarra has, showed it to his Aunt Pumpkin, and BAM (thank Emeril) went Freaky Friday when Aunt Ellie agreed to an hour free from back aches.

At this point, I suspect her reflexes would give her five minutes free of back aches and then the other 55 minutes would be back aches from arching her back to support weights that are no longer there.

I found that bit of dialogue confusing as well, actually. The most sensical meaning I could give it was that if they left right away that would mean either ditching Tarra (who would naturally just use her super powers to fly to Denny’s) or pulling her out before she had time to properly defeat ‘rocket launcher girl’, and if they did either of those then RLG could make a surprise appearance later.

Either that, or- this just occurred to me- Ginger may actually be replying to Quinn, not Ellie, and is telling *Quinn* to be patient and not walk off in a huff and get herself exploded. That is, by saying “wants us ALL there”, Ginger may be referring to Quinn, not Tarra.

You know, that’s good. I know that my mom would want my friends to come with me, as long as they weren’t moochers that is. But, then Ginger seems to be on the ball with the drilling Ellie’s buttons into the ground with the teasing.

And it keeps Quinn with the rest of them in a logical way. Plus, it’s a “I’m so glad that you and my daughter are friends” type of thing. Or if they were friends before the fifth grade, then it might be “I’m so glad to see you again. How are your parents (and all that other stuff).”

Call it a hunch but how much do you all wanna bet that all the assurances that Cinn’s not gay will fly right over her head and she will start bringing home girls and embracing the “pride” culture? Not as a discriminatory thing but as comedic irony lol

Too far fetched, because she already had a man, and she would probably reason it out to be bisexual, because Ellie’s gay, and there was Derek. So, in taking up the mantle, Juniper has to relinquish her title, thus driving the Sisterhood Council into chaos, allowing Pumpkin to say, “EEnucCHUCK” just to get the bigger rack.

Yep, it goes along with the implied assumption everyone has that it doesn’t matter if Sister X has a rocket launcher or not, Tarra’s victory is a forgone conclusion.

As in, the conversation isn’t “Oh my God, Tarra might get killed.” It’s “I she hurries up because I have crap planned.” Once again reinforcing the impression I’ve had that this is the sort of thing Tarra deals with constantly.

…is it just me, or are the non-sequitors and pop culture references getting a wee bit too thick in the comments these days? I can’t tell if an interesting conversation thread has gone completely off the rails or not when I can’t tell if someone’s just being clever or if it’s relevant in a way I don’t get. I’m not sure what’s going on with the mock-celebrities/personalities popping up out of nowhere.

And yes, I’ll freely admit it is sometimes I just don’t get the reference. I saw Kung Pow once years ago and couldn’t stand it (go ahead, hate me now), so those just whoosh past my head, but that’s on me.

It’s when it feels that every single comment thread (or just a high percentage of them) devolve to a movie quote, description of a scene from something, or something else it feels like it’s not worth throwing a conversational gambit out there because it’ll just get buried. I don’t mind pop culture/meme use when it’s clever, but not when it becomes the standard response to everything.

My thoughts exactly. I “get” references, but I don’t often “get” their connection to the topic.

I mean, I’ll certainly jump on memes and references when they’re relevant (I am a geek on the internet after all), but quoting a movie just because… and then people laugh because it was funny in the movie, even though it has absolutely no relevance to the discussion whatsoever? And you can tell it’s bad when you make a comment with no reference, then you get a whole thread of people trying to guess what you were referencing.

Then again, that doesn’t keep me out of the comments section altogether. When I see that stuff, I just scroll past it. Or if I have to scroll too far, I’ll hop in and make a snide remark.

Couldn’t the relevance be made from or inferred from the use of lines from said cinematic cultural pop reference being used and therefore allowing for a bit of a META application either from the people who think it matches what they see in the strip, or something like that?

See, I just consider such things to be an exercise in pattern matching. Determine the thread is references I don’t find amusing or a comment is devolving to the point that the specifics are uninteresting and not worth trying to wring a grammatical meaning from and move on.

Then again, I can read through Slashdot comments on a story where several friends can’t do that any more due to the pattern matching/filtering differences (I couldn’t read them if I paid as much attention to the irritating posts as they seem to either).

There are, of course, many comment threads from which to choose, and if you don’t feel comfortable engaging in the pop culture fun, there are plenty of other alternatives. Including the always popular choice “start your own.”